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Dol-y-Fan Round Cairn is a prehistoric round cairn located in Wales and protected by Cadw under reference RD125. The monument stands on bedrock formed from Ashgill Rocks, an undifferentiated sequence of mudstone, siltstone and sandstone that dates to the Ashgill stage of the Ordovician period. This geological foundation would have influenced both the construction methods available to the cairn's builders and the stability of the structure over subsequent millennia.
Round cairns of this type are typically funerary monuments erected during the Bronze Age, constructed from stone cleared from the surrounding landscape. The specific composition of the Ashgill bedrock—comprising layered sedimentary deposits—would have provided readily workable stone suitable for cairn building. The presence of such bedrock outcrops across the Welsh uplands made these elevated locations practical choices for monument construction.
The cairn's survival to the present day, despite its exposure on open moorland, testifies to the substantial nature of its original construction. As a scheduled ancient monument under Cadw's protection, Dol-y-Fan Round Cairn remains an important record of prehistoric funerary practice and land use in Wales, its location selected and maintained within a landscape shaped by ancient geological processes.
Dol-y-Fan Round Cairn is a scheduled monument protected by Cadw under reference RD125. View the official record →
Dol-y-Fan Round Cairn is a prehistoric round cairn located in Wales and protected by Cadw under reference RD125.
Dol-y-Fan Round Cairn dates from the prehistoric period, and is classified as a round cairn. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
Dol-y-Fan Round Cairn is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, legally protected by Cadw — the body responsible for designating and safeguarding heritage sites in Wales. The official designation reference is RD125.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Roman Fortlet (revealed by aerial photography), Disserth (7.5 km), Standing Stone SSE of Dol-y-Felin (7.6 km), Carneddau round cairns (8.1 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 13 strands of Dol-y-Fan Round Cairn's history, each drawn from the record and mapped to the exact spot:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Dol-y-Fan Round Cairn stands on Ashgill Rocks (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Ashgill. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone and sandstone.